Children's Book of the Year Awards

This is Children's Book Week and the Children's Book Council of Australia has announced its annual award winners. Any comments from readers? Any favourites? Differences of opinion with the judges? The shortlists can be seen here.

Book of the Year: Older ReadersRed Spikes by Margo Lanagan, Allen & Unwin

LATEST COMMENTS

Can we expect the SMH to pay even the slightest lip-service to the 2007 Children's Book Council of Australia awards?

The awards were announced last Friday, and I have checked the print version and googled daily, but it seems the SMH has chosen to totally ignore them.

This oversight, is, alas, no more than we in the children's lit community expect?and believe me, we're sick of banging on about it.

I'm no apologist for the CBCA awards?far from it. I'm repeatedly on the record with my criticisms of the CBCA's procedures and selections. But for better or worse, they are our country's most influential children's/YA lit awards, yet the SMH continues to either marginalise or totally ignore them.

It's an even greater shame this year, given the shortlisted and winning/honour book titles make them the most substantial awards (in my 'umble opinion) in a very long time.

The CBCA has acknowledged highly literary and challenging titles such as Margo Lanagan's "Red Spikes" (a short story collection?how often are such collections recognised in any award?), Ursula Dubosarsky's acclaimed and multi-award winning "The Red Shoe" and Shaun Tan's stunning graphic novel (also multi-award winning) "The Arrival".

The last two titles won acclaim in this year's NSW Premier's Literary Awards?"The Red Shoe" won the Ethel Turner Prize (two years running for Ms Dubosarsky), "The Arrival" was named overall Book of the Year.

These books have all received international acclaim?and I haven't even touched on the other CBCA categories (early childhood and information books).

I'd care less if the Herald chose to put the boot in?at least then we'd have grounds for a conversation. But to ignore the awards completely seems to me to be both irresponsible, wilfully uninformed and entirely regrettable.

Posted by: judith on August 22, 2007 12:23 PM

I wait for the shortlists but not necessarily the winners.
I'm a big fan of the picture book and it was a 'lay down misere' this year. You don't even have to be able to read English which given the title I thought was very clever of Mr Tan.

Posted by: jack johns on August 22, 2007 6:58 PM

I think it's only fair to point out that Judith's above slightly miffed comment was not written in response to the initial post relating to the CBCA awards, but was in fact posted to a different topic on this blog hoping to emphasise that the CBCA awards hadn't found their way onto the SMH site yet.

Posted by: james on August 22, 2007 9:19 PM

I know what you mean about the winners Jack, but in fact the shortlist is also never to be found in the pages of the Sydney Morning Herald... And in fact the shortlist has greater cultural and economic importance overall than the winners, as it is the shortlist that drives the very large sales throughout Australia in schools, libraries and bookshops - winning does not have the same impact. Good post Judith.

Posted by: Gracie on August 23, 2007 9:39 AM

The SMH not including anything about the CBCA Book Week and awards is a sad reflection of the general attitude towards children’s and youth literacy education in Australia as a whole. Governments and the general community pay lip service to its importance but fail to put funds into what is arguably one of the most important strategies that would ensure its development - school libraries and qualified teacher librarians.

Harriet Alexander today (23 August), reports on plagiarism among overseas students in the University of New England. This implies that it only occurs among our guest students; however it is a general problem among all students if they haven’t received adequate education in Information Literacy in our primary and secondary schools.

While teachers in our primary and secondary classrooms are doing a great job in general, the curriculum is just too crowded to expect them to do justice to literature and information literacy as such. Not all is lost however! We have dual qualified teacher librarians who are experts in the resourcing and the teaching of these two areas. Sadly, however, funding for properly resourced and staffed school libraries has been drastically cut in most schools throughout the country. Steve Hurd, UK Open University researcher, says "higher book spending translates into higher pupil performance - every pound spent on books increases pupils' academic achievement at twice the rate of a pound spent on ICT."

Literacy is not just about teaching the mechanics of reading; it is about a whole range of things - two of which are increasing the profile of children’s and youth literature, and promoting comfortable, attractive school libraries that are going to entice students in to pick up a book.

Posted by: Cathy on August 23, 2007 2:02 PM

On Saturday I discovered (like other readers) that Spectrum did not contain any mention of the CBC annual Book Week Awards. I immediately sent a letter to the Editor of Spectrum asking why this is so, when in past years, the coverage has been quite good. Sadly this has dwindled to nothing.

To date, I have not had a reply.

When articles in the Herald are discussing the need to promote reading, I find it disappointing that the Herald does little to support this.

Where will our adult readers be if we do not promote children's reading and the wonderful array of Australian writing talent?

The next 'local' celebration of children's reading is the annual KOALA (Kids Own Australian Literature Awards. Let's hope the Herald may consider lending its support to this exciting event - promoted predominantly by both school and public libraries.

Posted by: Sharon on August 23, 2007 3:52 PM

This is a copy of a letter I sent yesterday to the Herald regarding the Children’s Book Council Awards.
“What does the Herald have against writing for young people? Aside from charting the Harry Potter phenomenon, the Herald pays scant attention to children’s and young adults’ literature. The Miles Franklin Awards, for example, always command space in the paper, and rightly so; the Australian Children's Book Council Awards, however, are slighted. This disregard cannot be attributed to low sales volume, because young people are buying and reading books written by Australian writers in great numbers. Is it elitism? Or is the Herald suggesting children and teenagers are irrelevant?”

Melina Marchetta
Writer

Posted by: Melina Marchetta on August 23, 2007 5:17 PM

Good to see your contribution, Melina! I'd like to add that many books in the so called "young people's category" make fascinating reads for the adult too. Take your own books for example.

Posted by: Cathy on August 24, 2007 12:12 PM

Jeanette Winterson also writes some great Young Adult fiction that transcends the genre.

Posted by: jb on August 24, 2007 2:19 PM

And 'transcending the genre' means what, exactly? All decent children's books can be read by adults without the sense that they are 'slumming it' from a literary POV, and still be admirably suitable for children. Books such as Red Spikes by Margo Lanagan and The Red Shoe by Ursula Dubosarsky run rings round many of the adult literary titles reviewed by the Herald (and other publications); that they they are often not adequately reviewed in the first place, let alone given space when they win a major award, is an annnoying reflection on the way childrens and YA literature is regarded in Australia.

Posted by: Joanne Horniman on August 29, 2007 12:20 PM

Yes, 'transcending the genre' is an interesting phrase in this context. Leaving aside the fact that it is quite condescending (as Joanne has pointed out), it raises an important question: is children's literature a genre?

Most genres have textual characteristics -- the stock characters of romance, the speculative or futuristic settings of sci-fi, etc. Children's literature, however, is the only 'genre' defined purely by its intended readership.

There are a million different categories within children's literature. The CBCA divides its awards by reading age, which helps make it more manageable--but the creation of the picture book (as distinct from early childhood) award reflects that even these categories have limitations.

One great thing about the CBCA awards are that they are (relatively) genre-blind. Unlike most book awards, humour and fantasy are considered alongside 'serious' or literary books (even if the 'serious' ones tend to win). In this year's older readers shortlist, for example, there is realism, litreature, humour, fantasy and history.

I think SMH does regard children's literature as a single genre--and sidelines it in the same was it does other genre fiction. Having said that, I was thrilled this week to see children's books getting a semi-decent showing in Spectrum this week. Multi-book reviews, of course, but it's a start. Nice to see one YA book getting reviewed in 'In Short'. More of it, please!